Acts 18:1 - Exposition

He for Paul, A.V. and T.R. After these things , etc. No hint is given by St. Luke as to the length of Paul's sojourn at Athens. But as the double journey of the Beroeans, who accompanied him to Athens, back to Beraea, and of Timothy from Beraea to Athens, amounted to above five hundred miles, we cannot suppose it to have been less than a month; and it may have been a good deal more. His reasonings in the synagogue with the Jews and devout Greeks, apparently on successive sabbaths, his daily disputations in the Agora, apparently not begun till after he had "waited" some time for Silas and Timothy, the knowledge he had acquired of the numerous temples and altars at Athens, and the phrase with which this chapter begins, all indicate a stay of some length. Came to Corinth . If by land, a forty miles' or two days' journey, through Eleusis and Megara; if by sea, a day's sail. Lewin thinks he came by sea, and that it was in winter, and that possibly one of the shipwrecks mentioned in 2 Corinthians 11:25 may have occurred at this time. Corinth, at this time a Roman colony, the capital of the province of Achaia, and the residence of the proconsul. It was a great commercial city, the center of the trade of the Levant, and consequently a great resort of the Jews. It had a very large Greek population. Ancient Corinth had been destroyed by Mummins, surnamed Achaicus, R.C. 146, and remained waste ( ἐρήμη ) many years. Julius Caesar founded a Roman colony on the old site (Howson), "consisting principally of freedmen, among whom were great numbers of the Jewish race." Corinth, as a Roman colony, had its duumviri, as appears by coins of the reign of Claudius

. So in classical authors, Livia and Livilla, Drusa and Drusilla, are used of the same persons. Prisca is a not uncommon name for Roman women. The masculine Priscus occurs very frequently. Aquila and Priscilla were among the most active Christians, and the most devoted friends of St. Paul ( Acts 2:18 , Acts 2:26 ; Romans 16:3 , Romans 16:4 , Romans 16:5 ; 1 Corinthians 16:19 ; 2 Timothy 4:19 ); and were evidently persons of culture as well as piety. Lately; προσφάτως ( i.q. πρόσφατον , Pindar, etc.), only found here in the New Testament. But it occurs in the LXX . of Deuteronomy 24:5 and Ezekiel 11:3 , and in the apocryphal books repeatedly, and in Polybius. The adjective πρόσφατος , which is also used by the LXX . and the Apocrypha and in classical Greek for "new," is used only once in the New Testament, in Hebrews 10:20 . It means properly "newly killed," hence anything "recent," "fresh, or "new." Both the adjective and the adverb are very common in medical writings. Claudius had commanded all the Jews to depart from Rome . Suetonius mentions the fact, but unfortunately does not say in what year of Claudius's reign it took place. His account is that, in consequence of frequent disturbances and riots among the Jews at the instigation of Chrestus, Claudius drove them from Rome. It seems almost certain, as Renan says, especially combining Tacitus's account ('Annal.,' 15.44) of the spread of Christianity in the city of Rome before the time of Nero, that Chrestus (Greek χρηστός ,) is only a corruption of the name Christ, similar to that found on three or four inscriptions before the time of Constantine, where Christians are called χρηστιανοί , and to the formation of the French word Chretien— in old French Chrestien; and that the true account of these riots is that they were attacks of the unbelieving Jews upon Christian Jews, similar to these at Jerusalem ( Acts 8:1-40 .), at Antioch in Pisidia ( Acts 13:50 ), at Iconium and Lystra ( Acts 14:1-28 .), and at Thessalonica and Beraea ( Acts 17:1-34 .). The Romans did not discriminate between Jews and Christian Jews, and thought that those who called Christ their King were fighting under his leadership. Tertullian and Lactantius both speak of the vulgar pronunciation, Chres tianus and Chrestus. Howson also adopts the above explanation. But Meyer thinks that Chrestus was, as Suetonius says, a Jewish leader of insurrection at Rome. The question bears on the passage before us chiefly as the solution does or does not prove the existence of Christians at Rome at this time, and affects the probability of Aquila and Priscilla being already Christians when they came to Corinth, before they made St. Paul's acquaintance.